All Charlie and Lola stories start out with “I have this little sister, Lola.  She is small and very funny”.  Last night Flopsy picked up a Charlie and Lola book and ‘read’ out those two sentences then said “Mummy, I’m going to read this book to you, can you listen to me?”.  So I suggested that she came and sat next to me and we read it together.  I pointed to each word, she read the ones she knows already (’the’, ‘it’, ‘and’ etc. - she knows quite a few and the book she’d chosen happened to have quite a number of her known words in it, which was great for her confidence); asked me for the words she doesn’t yet know, repeating them after me; and ‘read’ out the sentences she knew off by heart from being read the story so many times before, but still by pointing at each word.  This is the first time she’s ever done this in this way…up until now her reading progression has mostly been by looking over my shoulder as I read my books, pointing out the words she recognises, and asking me what some other words say.  This led onto her asking me to read her whole sentences, and even paragraphs, word by word - even though the books were grown-up books with no pictures, she still loved to do this an awful lot.  She’s obviously moved on a stage in her reading and it’s so exciting and lovely to see, without any coercion from us at all. 

Mopsy’s forte, on the other hand, is art.  She’s spent the last month asking every adult around to draw pictures of Father Christmas and snowmen.  She watches very carefully how they do it.  Gradually she’s started to draw Father Christmasses and Snowmen of her own.  They wouldn’t be recognisable to anyone else, but she often says what she’s drawing as she’s doing it and it’s quite wonderful.  She does a big circle for the face, with little circles inside for the eyes, then zigzags all around for a beard.  I will try to take a photo of one to put on here soon.  I love, love, love watching them grow up.

Oh yes, forgot I had three children to blog about now…Cotton-tail is smiling at us, adores gazing at her big sisters while they dance around trying to entertain her, and has started to make those wonderful coo-ing noises when she’s calm and happy.  She’s amazingly strong and desperately tries to roll towards whoever or whatever is catching her attention.  I think she’s going to be a real, delightful pickle in the summer when she does get mobile - how on earth am I going to keep her safe?  Keeping Mopsy safe was hard enough, but I only had one toddler to tidy up after then!